Salem, Oregon based Ideabox has been creating some buzz lately with their new home design, the Fortino, which will be revealed at the Seattle Home Show 2, October 22-25, 2009, at Qwest Field. After a little coaxing, Ideabox was kind enough to let us see these renderings and a floor plan in anticipation of the big event. Fortino will include 1,250 square-feet of loft-like living shared between two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen, dining room, and living room.

Hot on the heels of our prior coverage of the Rainscreen Shed and the International Shed of the Year comes this solar-powered beauty, the Microhouse. According to Naomi Seldin of Simpler Living, the 100 square-foot tiny house is part of the Human = Landscape exhibit going on in City Hall Park in Burlington, Vermont. The Microhouse was built by Alex Carver and Christopher North of Northern Timbers Construction with the design help of landscape architect and metal artist H. Keith Wagner.

The portable classroom is just about as ubiquitous as the mobile home, so our ears perked when Toby Long, principal of Clever Homes and Toby Long Design, mentioned these first-generation, prefab, green portable classrooms. Working with the Chartwell School in Seaside, California — itself the first LEED Platinum campus in the country — Toby Long Design designed, fabricated, and installed two relocatable classroom structures on the Chartwell campus. Almost incredibly, the on-site work only took about four weeks.

All the prefab enthusiasts need to make sure to check out this Hive Modular home in St. Paul's historic Capitol Heights neighborhood. The home and its owner, David Schmit, were profiled in Midwest Home, and the article provides an interesting glimpse into getting a prefab built. Schmit bought the lot, sold his home, worked with Hive Modular on the design, worked with the local architectural planning board to get approvals, and finally worked with the city of St. Paul to get approvals. It took some time and patience, too.

Blake Schreck of Blicker Design was browsing the internet for the perfect dog house and eventually decided to build something of his own design. After building these two styles, Schreck decided it would be fun to sell modern dog houses online. The problem is, he wants to sell green dog houses. So he emailed us and asks whether the Jetson Green audience has any suggestions for affordable, green materials, whether FSC plywood, recycled HDPE plastic, or otherwise. What do you think? Sound off below or at Blicker Design.

In Surrey (near Vancouver), Canada, a new prefab company is taking shape. Preform Construction has a 20,000 square-foot factory for building Predesigned Living Units that have been designed by Tony Robins of AA Robins Architect. The home featured in this article is made with one unit and includes some of the following green elements: